On the Arizona immigration law: Was Romney calling it a “model” or was he referring to “e-verify?”

President Obama charged that former Gov. Romney called the Arizona immigration law “a model.”
Romney came back aggressively, insisting he never called the legislation a model, but was referring to the “e-verify” part of the law.

So who’s telling the truth?
We report, you decide.
Here was the question from John King of CNN at the Feb. 22 GOP primary debate:“Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who’s with us tonight from Maricopa County—he’s in the audience—he told me this week here in Mesa—these are his words—”it’s called political garbage, if you will, to not arrest illegals already in this country.”
“You’ve talked, governor, about self-deportation, if businesses do their job, asking for the right documents, the people will leave. But what about arresting? Should there be aggressive, seek them out, find them and arrest them as the Sheriff Arpaio advocates?”

Here was the answer from Mitt Romney:“You know, I think you see a model here in Arizona….They passed a law here that says — that says that people who come here and try and find work, that the employer is required to look them up on e- verify. This e-verify system allows employers in Arizona to know who’s here legally and who’s not here legally.
“And as a result of e-verify being put in place, the number of people in Arizona that are here illegally has dropped by some 14 percent, where the national average has only gone down 7 percent.”

“So going back to the question that was asked, the right course for America is to drop these lawsuits against Arizona and other states that are trying to do the job Barack Obama isn’t doing.”

“And I will drop those lawsuits on day one. I’ll also complete the fence. I’ll make sure we have enough border patrol agents to secure the fence. And I will make sure we have an E-Verify system and require employers to check the documents of workers, and to check E- Verify. And if an employer hires someone that has not gone through E- Verify, they’re going to get sanctioned just like they do for not paying their taxes.”

“You do that, and just as Arizona is finding out, you can stop illegal immigration. It’s time we finally did it.”